Three-quarters of an hour later Henry might have been seen—in fact, was seen by a number of disinterested wayfarers—to enter a magnificent new block of offices and flats in Charing Cross Road.Love in Babylonwas firmly gripped under his right arm. Partly this strange burden and partly the brilliant aspect of the building made him feel self-conscious and humble and rather unlike his usual calm self. For, although Henry was accustomed to offices, he was not accustomed to magnificent offices. There are offices in Lincoln's Inn Fields, offices of extreme wealth, which, were they common lodging-houses, would be instantly condemned by the County Council. Powells was such a one—and Sir George had a reputed income of twenty thousand a year. AtPowells the old Dickensian tradition was kept vigorously alive by every possible means. Dirt and gloom were omnipresent. Cleanliness and ample daylight would have been deemed unbusinesslike, as revolutionary and dangerous as a typewriter. One day, in winter, Sir George had taken cold, and he had attributed his misfortune, in language which he immediately regretted, to the fact that 'that d——d woman had cleaned the windows'—probably with a damp cloth. 'That d——d woman' was the caretaker, a grey-haired person usually dressed in sackcloth, who washed herself, incidentally, while washing the stairs. At Powells, nothing but the stairs was ever put to the indignity of a bath.
That Henry should be somewhat diffident about invading Kenilworth Mansions was therefore not surprising. He climbed three granite steps, passed through a pair of swinging doors, traversed eight feet of tesselated pavement, climbed three more granite steps, passed through another pair of swinging doors, and discovered himself in a spacious marble hall, with a lift-cabinet resembling a confessional, and broad stairs behind curving up to Paradise. On either side of him, in placeof priceless works by old masters, were great tablets inscribed with many names in gold characters. He scanned these tablets timidly, and at length found what he wanted, 'Mark Snyder, Literary Agent,' under the heading 'Third Floor.' At the same moment a flunkey in chocolate and cream approached him.
'Mr. Snyder?' asked Henry.
'Third-floor, left,' pronounced the flunkey, thus giving the tablets the force of his authority.
As Henry was wafted aloft in the elevator, with the beautiful and innocuous flunkey as travelling companion, he could not help contrasting that official with the terrible Powellian caretaker who haunted the Powellian stairs.
On the third-floor, which seemed to be quite a world by itself, an arrow with the legend 'Mark Snyder, Literary Agent,' directed his mazed feet along a corridor to a corner where another arrow with the legend 'Mark Snyder, Literary Agent,' pointed along another corridor. And as he progressed, the merry din of typewriters grew louder and louder. At length he stood in front of a glassy door, and on the face of the door, in a graceful curve, was painted the legend, 'MarkSnyder, Literary Agent.' Shadows of vague moving forms could be discerned on the opalescent glass, and the chatter of typewriters was almost disconcerting.
Henry paused.
That morning Mr. Mark Snyder had been to Powells on the business of one of his clients, a historian of the Middle Ages, and in the absence of Sir George had had a little talk with Henry. And Henry had learnt for the first time what a literary agent was, and, struck by the man's astuteness and geniality, had mentioned the matter ofLove in Babylon. Mr. Snyder had kindly promised to look into the matter ofLove in Babylonhimself if Henry could call on him instantly with the manuscript. The reason for haste was that on the morrow Mr. Snyder was leaving England for New York on a professional tour of the leading literary centres of the United States. Hence Henry's telegram to Dawes Road.
Standing there in front of Mr. Snyder's door, Henry wondered whether, after all, he was not making a fool of himself. But he entered.
Two smart women in tight and elegant bodices, with fluffy bows at the backs of their necks, lookedup from two typewriters, and the one with golden hair rose smiling and suave.
'Well, you seem a fairly nice sort of boy—I shall be kind to you,' her eyes appeared to say. Her voice, however, said nothing except, 'Will you take a seat a moment?' and not even that until Henry had asked if Mr. Snyder was in.
The prospective client examined the room. It had a carpet, and lovely almanacs on the walls, and in one corner, on a Japanese table, was a tea-service in blue and white. Tables more massive bore enormous piles of all shapes and sizes of manuscripts, scores and hundreds or unprinted literary works, and they all carried labels, 'Mark Snyder, Literary Agent.'Love in Babylonshrank so small that Henry could scarcely detect its presence under his arm.
Then Goldenhair, who had vanished, came back, and, with the most enchanting smile that Henry had ever seen on the face of a pretty woman, lured him by delicious gestures into Mr. Mark Snyder's private office.
'Well,' exclaimed Mr. Snyder, full of good-humour, 'here we are again.' He was a fair, handsome man of about forty, and he sat at abroad table playing with a revolver. 'What do you think of that, Mr. Knight?' he asked sharply, holding out the revolver for inspection.
'It seems all right,' said Henry lamely.
Mr. Snyder laughed heartily. 'I'm going to America to-morrow. I told you, didn't I? Never been there before. So I thought I'd get a revolver. Never know, you know. Eh?' He laughed again.
Then he suddenly ceased laughing, and sniffed the air.
'Is this a business office?' Henry asked himself. 'Or is it a club?'
His feet were on a Turkey carpet. He was seated in a Chippendale chair. A glorious fire blazed behind a brass fender, and the receptacle for coal was of burnished copper. Photogravures in rich oaken frames adorned the roseate walls. The ceiling was an expanse of ornament, with an electric chandelier for centre.
'Have a cigarette?' said Mr. Snyder, pushing across towards Henry a tin of Egyptians.
'Thanks,' said Henry, who did not usually smoke, and he putLove in Babylonon the table.
Mr. Snyder sniffed the air again.
'Now, what can I do for you?' said he abruptly.
Henry explained the genesis, exodus, and vicissitudes ofLove in Babylon, and Mr. Snyder stretched out an arm and idly turned over a few leaves of the manuscript as it lay before its author.
'Who's your amanuensis?' he demanded, smiling.
'My aunt,' said Henry.
'Ah yes!' said Mr. Snyder, smiling still, 'It's too short, you know,' he added, grave. 'Too short. What length is it?'
'Nearly three hundred folios.'
'None of your legal jargon here,' Mr. Snyder laughed again. 'What's a folio?'
'Seventy-two words.'
'About twenty thousand words then, eh? Too short!'
'Does that matter?' Henry demanded. 'I should have thought——'
'Of course it matters,' Mr. Snyder snapped. 'If you went to a concert, and it began at eight and finished at half-past, would you go out satisfied with the performers' assurance that quality and not quantity was the thing? Ha, ha!'
Mr. Snyder sniffed the air yet again, and looked at the fire inquisitively, still sniffing.
'There's only one price for novels, six-shillings,' Mr. Snyder proceeded. 'The public likes six shillings' worth of quality. But it absolutely insists on six shillings' worth of quantity, and doesn't object to more. What can I do with this?' he went on, picking upLove in Babylonand weighing it as in a balance. 'WhatcanI do with a thing like this?'
'If Carlyle came to Kenilworth Mansions!' Henry speculated. At the same time Mr. Snyder's epigrammatic remarks impressed him. He saw the art of Richardson and Balzac in an entirely new aspect. It was as though he had walked round the house of literature, and peeped in at the backdoor.
Mr. Snyder suddenly putLove in Babylonto his nose.
'Oh, it'sthat!' he murmured, enlightened.
Henry had to narrate the disaster of the onion-cart, at which Mr. Snyder was immensely amused.
'Good!' he ejaculated. 'Good! By the way, might send it to Onions Winter. Know OnionsWinter? No? He's always called Spring Onions in the trade. Pushing man. What a joke it would be!' Mr. Snyder roared with laughter. 'But seriously, Winter might——'
Just then Goldenhair entered the room with a slip of paper, and Mr. Snyder begged to be excused a moment. During his absence Henry reflected upon the singularly unbusinesslike nature of the conversation, and decided that it would be well to import a little business into it.
'I'm called away,' said Mr. Snyder, re-entering.
'I must go, too,' said Henry. 'May I ask, Mr. Snyder, what are your terms for arranging publication?'
'Ten per cent.,' said Mr. Snyder succinctly. 'On gross receipts. Generally, to unknown men, I charge a preliminary fee, but, of course, with you——'
'Ten per cent.?' Henry inquired.
'Ten per cent.,' repeated Mr. Snyder.
'Does that mean—ten per cent.?' Henry demanded, dazed.
Mr. Snyder nodded.
'But do you mean to say,' said the author ofLove in Babylonimpressively, 'that if a book ofmine makes a profit of ten thousand pounds, you'll take a thousand pounds just for getting it published?'
'It comes to that,' Mr. Snyder admitted.
'Oh!' cried Henry, aghast, astounded. 'A thousand pounds!'
And he kept saying: 'A thousand pounds! A thousand pounds!'
He saw now where the Turkey carpets and the photogravures and the Teofani cigarettes came from.
'A thousand pounds!'
Mr. Snyder stuck the revolver into a drawer.
'I'll think it over,' said Henry discreetly. 'How long shall you be in America?'
'Oh, about a couple of months!' And Mr. Snyder smiled brightly. Henry could not find a satisfactory explanation of the man's eternal jollity.
'Well, I'll think it over,' he said once more, very courteously. 'And I'm much obliged to you for giving me an interview.' And he took upLove in Babylonand departed.
It appeared to have been a futile and ludicrous encounter.
Yes, there had been something wrong with the interview. It had entirely failed to tally with his expectations of it. The fact was that he, Henry, had counted for very little in it. He had sat still and listened, and, after answering Mr. Mark Snyder's questions, he had made no original remark except 'A thousand pounds!' And if he was disappointed with Mr. Snyder, and puzzled by him, too, he was also disappointed with himself. He felt that he had displayed none of those business qualities which he knew he possessed. He was a man of affairs, with a sure belief in his own capacity to handle any matter requiring tact and discretion; and yet he had lolled like a simpleton in the Chippendale chair of Mr. Snyder, and contributed naught to the interview save 'A thousand pounds!'
Nevertheless, he sincerely thought Mr. Snyder's terms exorbitant. He was not of the race of literary aspirants who are eager to be published at any price. Literature had no fatal fascination for him. His wholly sensible idea now was that, having written a book, he might as well get it printed and make an honest penny out of it, if possible. However, the effect of the visit to Kenilworth Mansions was to persuade him to resolve to abandon the enterprise; Mr. Mark Snyder had indeed discouraged him. And in the evening, when he reached Dawes Road, he gave his mother and aunt a truthful account of the episode, and stated, pleasantly but plainly, that he should burnLove in Babylon. And his mother and aunt, perceiving that he was in earnest, refrained from comment.
And after they had gone to bed he tookLove in Babylonout of the brown paper in which he had wrapped it, and folded the brown paper and tied up the string; and he was in the very act of puttingLove in Babylonbodily on the fire, when he paused.
'Suppose I give it one more chance?' he reflected.
He had suddenly thought of the name of Mr. Onions Winter, and of Mr. Snyder's interrupted observations upon that publisher. He decided to sendLove in Babylonto Mr. Winter. He untied the string, unfolded the brown paper, indited a brief letter, and made the parcel anew.
A week later, only a week, Mr. Onions Winter wrote asking Henry to call upon him without delay, and Henry called. The establishment of Mr. Onions Winter was in Leicester Square, between the Ottoman Music Hall and a milliner's shop. Architecturally it presented rather a peculiar appearance. The leading feature of the ground-floor was a vast arch, extending across the entire frontage in something more than a semicircle. Projecting from the keystone of the arch was a wrought-iron sign bearing a portrait in copper, and under the portrait the words 'Ye Shakspere Head.' Away beneath the arch was concealed the shop-window, an affair of small square panes, and in the middle of every small pane was stuck a small card, 'The Satin Library—Onions Winter.' This mystic phrase was repeated a hundred and sixty-five times. To the right of the window was a low green door with a copperhandle in the shape of a sow's tail, and the legend 'Ye Office of Onions Winter.'
'Is Mr. Winter in?' Henry demanded of a young man in a very high collar, after he had mastered the mechanism of the sow's tail.
'Yes, he'sin,' said the young man rudely, as Henry thought. (How different from Goldenhair was this high collar!)
'Do you want to see him?' asked the young man, when he had hummed an air and stared out of the window.
'No,' said Henry placidly. 'But he wants to see me. My name is Knight.'
Henry had these flashes of brilliance from time to time. They came of themselves, asLove in Babyloncame. He felt that he was beginning better with Mr. Onions Winter than he had begun with Mr. Mark Snyder.
In another moment he was seated opposite Mr. Winter in a charming but littered apartment on the first-floor. He came to the conclusion that all literary offices must be drawing-rooms.
'And so you are the author ofLove in Babylon?' began Mr. Winter. He was a tall man, with burning eyes, grey hair, a grey beardwhich stuck out like the sun's rays, but no moustache. The naked grey upper lip was very deep, and somehow gave him a formidable appearance. He wore a silk hat at the back of his head, and a Melton overcoat rather like Henry's own, but much longer.
'You like it?' said Henry boldly.
'I think—— The fact is, I will be frank with you, Mr. Knight.' Here Mr. Onions Winter picked upLove in Babylon, which lay before him, and sniffed at it exactly as Mr. Snyder had done. 'The fact is, I shouldn't have thought twice about it if it hadn't been for this peculiar odour——'
Here Henry explained the odour.
'Ah yes. Very interesting!' observed Mr. Winter without a smile. 'Very curious! We might make a par out of that. Onions—onions. The public likes these coincidences. Well, as I tell you, I shouldn't have thought twice about it if it hadn't been for this——' (Sniff, sniff.) 'Then I happened to glance at the title, and the title attracted me. I must admit that the title attracted me. You have hit on a very pretty title, Mr. Knight, a very pretty title indeed. Itook your book home and read it myself, Mr. Knight. I didn't send it to any of my readers. Not a soul in this office has read it except me. I'm a bit superstitious, you know. We all are—everyone is, when it comes to the point. And that Onions—onions! And then the pretty title! I like your book, Mr. Knight. I tell you candidly, I like it. It's graceful and touching, and original. It's got atmosphere. It's got that indefinable something—je ne sais quoi—that we publishers are always searching for. Of course it's crude—very crude in places. It might be improved. What do you want for it, Mr. Knight? What are you asking?'
Mr. Onions Winter rose and walked to the window in order, apparently, to drink his fill of the statue of Shakspere in the middle of the square.
'I don't know,' said Henry, overjoyed but none the less perplexed. 'I have not considered the question of price.'
'Will you take twenty-five pounds cash down for it—lock, stock, and barrel? You know it's very short. In fact, I'm just about the only publisher in London who would be likely to deal with it.'
Henry kept silence.
'Eh?' demanded Mr. Onions Winter, still perusing the Shaksperean forehead. 'Cash down. Will you take it?'
'No, I won't, thank you,' said Henry.
'Then what will you take?'
'I'll take a hundred.'
'My dear young man!' Mr. Onions Winter turned suddenly to reason blandly with Henry. 'Are you aware that that means five pounds a thousand words? Many authors of established reputation would be glad to receive as much. No, I should like to publish your book, but I am neither a philanthropist nor a millionaire.'
'What I should really prefer,' said Henry, 'would be so much on every copy sold.'
'Ah! A royalty?'
'Yes. A royalty. I think that is fairer to both parties,' said Henry judicially.
'So you'd prefer a royalty,' Mr. Onions Winter addressed Shakspere again. 'Well. Let me begin by telling you that first books by new authors never pay expenses. Never! Never! I always lose money on them. But you believe in your book? You believe in it, don't you?' He faced Henry once more.
'Yes,' said Henry.
'Then, you must have the courage of your convictions. I will give you a royalty of three halfpence in the shilling on every copy after the first five thousand. Thus, if it succeeds, you will share in the profit. If it fails, my loss will be the less. That's fair, isn't it?'
It seemed fair to Henry. But he was not Sir George's private secretary for nothing.
'You must make it twopence in the shilling,' he said in an urbane but ultimatory tone.
'Very well,' Mr. Onions Winter surrendered at once. 'We'll say twopence, and end it.'
'And what will the price of the book be?' Henry inquired.
'Two shillings, naturally. I intend it for the Satin Library. You know about the Satin Library? You don't know about the Satin Library? My dear sir, I hope it's going to bethehit of the day. Here's a dummy copy.' Mr. Winter picked up an orange-tinted object from a side-table. 'Feel that cover! Look at it! Doesn't it feel like satin? Doesn't it look like satin? But it isn't satin. It's paper—a new invention, the latest thing. You notice the book-markerisofsatin—real satin. Now observe the shape—isn't that original? And yet quite simple—it's exactly square! And that faint design of sunflowers! These books will be perfect bibelots; that's what they'll be—bibelots. Of course, between you and me, there isn't going to be very much for the money—a hundred and fifty quite small pages. But that's between you and me. And the satin will carry it off. You'll see these charming bijou volumes in every West End drawing-room, Mr. Knight, in a few weeks. Take my word for it. By the way, will you sign our form of agreement now?'
So Henry perpended legally on the form of agreement, and, finding nothing in it seriously to offend the legal sense, signed it with due ceremony.
'Can you correct the proofs instantly, if I send them?' Mr. Winter asked at parting.
'Yes,' said Henry, who had never corrected a proof in his life. 'Are you in a hurry?'
'Well,' Mr. Winter replied, 'I had meant to inaugurate the Satin Library with another book. In fact, I have already bought five books for it. But I have a fancy to begin it with yours. I havea fancy, and when I have a fancy, I—I generally act on it. I like the title. It's a very pretty title. I'm taking the book on the title. And, really, in these days a pretty, attractive title is half the battle.'
Within two months,Love in Babylon, by Henry S. Knight, was published as the first volume of Mr. Onions Winter's Satin Library, and Henry saw his name in the papers under the heading 'Books Received.' The sight gave him a passing thrill, but it was impossible for him not to observe that in all essential respects he remained the same person as before. The presence of six author's copies ofLove in Babylonat Dawes Road alone indicated the great step in his development. One of these copies he inscribed to his mother, another to his aunt, and another to Sir George. Sir George accepted the book with a preoccupied air, and made no remark on it for a week or more. Then one morning he said: 'By the way, Knight, I ran through that little thing of yours last night. Capital! Capital! I congratulate you. Take down this letter.'
Henry deemed that Sir George's perspectivewas somewhat awry, but he said nothing. Worse was in store for him. On the evening of that same day he bought theWhitehall Gazetteas usual to read in the train, and he encountered the following sentences:
'Twaddle in Satin.'Mr. Onions Winter's new venture, the Satin Library, is a pretty enough thing in its satinesque way. Theformatis pleasant, the book-marker voluptuous, the binding Arty-and-Crafty. We cannot, however, congratulate Mr. Winter on the literary quality of the first volume. Mr. Henry S. Knight, the author ofLove in Babylon(2s.), is evidently a beginner, but he is a beginner from whom nothing is to be expected. That he has a certain gross facility in the management of sentimental narrative we will not deny. It is possible that he is destined to be the delight of "the great public." It is possible—but improbable. He has no knowledge of life, no feeling for style, no real sense of the dramatic. Throughout, from the first line to the last, his story moves on the plane of tawdriness, theatricality, and ballad pathos. There are some authors of whom it may be said that they will never better themselves. They are born with a certain rhapsodic gift of commonness, a gift which neither improves nor deteriorates. Richly dowered with crass mediocrity, they proceed from the cradle to the grave at one low dead level. We suspect that Mr. Knight is of these. In saying that it is a pity that he ever took up a pen, we have no desire to seem severe. He is doubtless a quite excellent and harmless person. But he has mistaken his vocation, and that is always a pity. We do not care so seethe admirable grocery trade robbed by the literary trade of a talent which was clearly intended by Providence to adorn it. As for the Satin Library, we hope superior things from the second volume.'
'Twaddle in Satin.
'Mr. Onions Winter's new venture, the Satin Library, is a pretty enough thing in its satinesque way. Theformatis pleasant, the book-marker voluptuous, the binding Arty-and-Crafty. We cannot, however, congratulate Mr. Winter on the literary quality of the first volume. Mr. Henry S. Knight, the author ofLove in Babylon(2s.), is evidently a beginner, but he is a beginner from whom nothing is to be expected. That he has a certain gross facility in the management of sentimental narrative we will not deny. It is possible that he is destined to be the delight of "the great public." It is possible—but improbable. He has no knowledge of life, no feeling for style, no real sense of the dramatic. Throughout, from the first line to the last, his story moves on the plane of tawdriness, theatricality, and ballad pathos. There are some authors of whom it may be said that they will never better themselves. They are born with a certain rhapsodic gift of commonness, a gift which neither improves nor deteriorates. Richly dowered with crass mediocrity, they proceed from the cradle to the grave at one low dead level. We suspect that Mr. Knight is of these. In saying that it is a pity that he ever took up a pen, we have no desire to seem severe. He is doubtless a quite excellent and harmless person. But he has mistaken his vocation, and that is always a pity. We do not care so seethe admirable grocery trade robbed by the literary trade of a talent which was clearly intended by Providence to adorn it. As for the Satin Library, we hope superior things from the second volume.'
Henry had the fortitude to read this pronouncement aloud to his mother and Aunt Annie at the tea-table.
'The cowards!' exclaimed Mrs. Knight.
Aunt Annie flushed. 'Let me look,' she whispered; she could scarcely control her voice. Having looked, she cast the paper with a magnificent gesture to the ground. It lay on the hearth-rug, open at a page to which Henry had not previously turned. From his arm-chair he could read in the large displayed type of one of Mr. Onions Winter's advertisements: 'Onions Winter. The Satin Library. The success of the year.Love in Babylon.By Henry S. Knight. Two shillings. Eighteenth thousand.—Onions Winter. The Satin Library. The success of the year.Love in Babylon.By Henry S. Knight. Two shillings. Eighteenth thousand.'
And so it went on, repeated and repeated, down the whole length of the twenty inches which constitute a column of theWhitehall Gazette.
Henry's sleep was feverish, and shot with the iridescence of strange dreams. And during the whole of the next day one thought burned in his brain, the thought of the immense success ofLove in Babylon. It burned so fiercely and so brightly, it so completely preoccupied Henry, that he would not have been surprised to overhear men whisper to each other in the street as he passed: 'See that extraordinary thought blazing away there in that fellow's brain?' It was, in fact, curious to him that people did not stop and gaze at his cranium, so much the thing felt like a hollowed turnip illuminated by this candle of an idea. But nobody with whom he came into contact appeared to be aware of the immense success ofLove in Babylon. In the office of Powells were seven full-fledgedsolicitors and seventeen other clerks, without counting Henry, and not a man or youth of the educated lot of them made the slightest reference toLove in Babylonduring all that day. (It was an ordinary, plain, common, unromantic, dismal Tuesday in Lincoln's Inn Fields.) Eighteen thousand persons had already boughtLove in Babylon; possibly several hundreds of copies had been sold since nine o'clock that morning; doubtless someone was every minute inquiring for it and demanding it in bookshop or library, just as someone is born every minute. And yet here was the author, the author himself, the veritable and only genuine author, going about his daily business unhonoured, unsung, uncongratulated, even unnoticed! It was incredible, and, besides being incredible, it was exasperating. Henry was modest, but there are limits to modesty, and more than once in the course of that amazing and endless Tuesday Henry had a narrow escape of draggingLove in Babylonbodily into the miscellaneous conversation of the office. However, with the aid of his natural diffidence he refrained from doing so.
At five-fifty Sir George departed, as usual, tocatch the six-five for Wimbledon, where he had a large residence, which outwardly resembled at once a Bloomsbury boarding-house, a golf-club, and a Riviera hotel. Henry, after Sir George's exit, lapsed into his principal's chair and into meditation. The busy life of the establishment died down until only the office-boys and Henry were left. And still Henry sat, in the leathern chair at the big table in Sir George's big room, thinking, thinking, thinking, in a vague but golden and roseate manner, about the future.
Then the door opened, and Foxall, the emperor of the Powellian office-boys, entered.
'Here's someone to see you,' Foxall whispered archly; he economized time by licking envelopes the while. Every night Foxall had to superintend and participate in the licking of about two hundred envelopes and as many stamps.
'Who is it?' Henry asked, instantly perturbed and made self-conscious by the doggishness, the waggishness, the rakishness, of Foxall's tone. It must be explained that, since Henry did not happen to be an 'admitted' clerk, Foxall and himself, despite the difference in their ages and salaries, were theoretically equals in the social scaleof the office. Foxall would say 'sir' to the meanest articled clerk that ever failed five times in his intermediate, but he would have expired on the rack before saying 'sir' to Henry. The favour accorded to Henry in high quarters, the speciality of his position, gave rise to a certain jealousy of him—a jealousy, however, which his natural simplicity and good-temper prevented from ever becoming formidable. Foxall, indeed, rather liked Henry, and would do favours for him in matters connected with press-copying, letter-indexing, despatching, and other mysteries of the office-boy's peculiar craft.
'It's a girl,' said Foxall, smiling with the omniscience of a man of the world.
'A girl!' Somehow Henry had guessed it was a girl. 'What's she like?'
'She's a bit of all right,' Foxall explained. 'Miss Foster she says her name is. Better show her in here, hadn't I? The old woman's in your room now. It's nearly half-past six.'
'Yes,' said Henry; 'show her in here. Foster? Foster? I don't know——'
His heart began to beat like an engine under his waistcoat.
And then Miss Foster tripped in. And she was Goldenhair!
'Good-afternoon, Mr. Knight,' she said, with a charming affectation of a little lisp. 'I'm so glad I've caught you. I thought I should. What a lovely room you've got!'
He wanted to explain that this was Sir George's room, not his own, and that any way he did not consider it lovely; but she gave him no chance.
'I'm awfully nervous, you know, and I always talk fast and loud when I'm nervous,' she continued rapidly. 'I shall get over it in a few minutes. Meanwhile you must bear with me. Do you think you can? I want you to do me a favour, Mr. Knight. Only you can do it. May I sit down? Oh, thanks! What a huge chair! If I get lost in it, please advertise. Is this where your clients sit? Yes, I want you to do me a favour. It's quite easy for you to do. You won't say No, will you? You won't think I'm presuming on our slight acquaintanceship?'
The words babbled and purled out of Miss Foster's mouth like a bright spring out of moss. It was simply wonderful. Henry did not understand quite precisely how the phenomenon affectedhim, but he was left in no doubt that his feelings were pleasurable. She had a manner of looking—of looking up at him and to him, of relying on him as a great big wise man who could get poor little silly her out of a difficulty. And when she wasn't talking she kept her mouth open, and showed her teeth and the tip of her red, red tongue. And there was her golden fluffy hair! But, after all, perhaps the principal thing was her dark-blue, tight-fitting bodice—not a wrinkle in all those curves!
It is singular how a man may go through life absolutely blind to a patent, obvious, glaring fact, and then suddenly perceive it. Henry perceived that his mother and his aunt were badly dressed—in truth, dowdy. It struck him as a discovery.
'Anything I can do, I'm sure——' he began.
'Oh, thank you, Mr. Knight I felt I could count on your good-nature. You know——'
She cleared her throat, and then smiled intimately, dazzlingly, and pushed a thin gold bangle over the wrist of her glove. And as she did so Henry thought what bliss it would be to slip a priceless diamond bracelet on to that arm. It was just an arm, the usual feminine arm; everynormal woman in this world has two of them; and yet——! But at the same time, such is the contradictoriness of human nature, Henry would have given a considerable sum to have had Miss Foster magically removed from the room, and to be alone. The whole of his being was deeply disturbed, as if by an earthquake. And, moreover, he could scarce speak coherently.
'You know,' said Miss Foster, 'I want to interview you.'
He did not take the full meaning of the phrase at first.
'What about?' he innocently asked.
'Oh, about yourself, and your work, and your plans, and all that sort of thing. The usual sort of thing, you know.'
'For a newspaper?'
She nodded.
He took the meaning. He was famous, then! People—that vague, vast entity known as 'people'—wished to know about him. He had done something. He had arrested attention—he, Henry, son of the draper's manager; aged twenty-three; eater of bacon for breakfast every morning like ordinary men; to be observed dailyin the Underground, and daily in the A.B.C. shop in Chancery Lane.
'You are thinking ofLove in Babylon?' he inquired.
She nodded again. (The nod itself was an enchantment. 'She's just about my age,' said Henry to himself. And he thought, without realizing that he thought: 'She's lots older than mepractically. She could twist me round her little finger.')
'Oh, Mr. Knight, she recommenced at a tremendous rate, sitting up in the great client's chair, 'you must let me tell you what I thought ofLove in Babylon! It's the sweetest thing! I read it right off, at one go, without looking up! And the title! Howdidyou think of it? Oh! if I could write, I would write a book like that. Old Spring Onions has produced it awfully well, too, hasn't he? It's a boom, a positive, unmistakable boom! Everyone's talking about you, Mr. Knight. Personally, I tell everyone I meet to read your book.'
Henry mildly protested against this excess of enthusiasm.
'I must,' Miss Foster explained. 'I can't help it.'
Her admiration was the most precious thing on earth to him at that moment. He had not imagined that he could enjoy anything so much as he enjoyed her admiration.
'I'm going now, Mr. Knight,' Foxall sang out from the passage.
'Very well, Foxall,' Henry replied, as who should say: 'Foxall, I benevolently permit you to go.'
They were alone together in the great suite of rooms.
'You knowHome and Beauty, don't you?' Miss Foster demanded.
'Home and Beauty?'
'Oh, you don't! I thought perhaps you did. But then, of course, you're a man. It's one of the new ladies' penny papers. I believe it's doing rather well now. I write interviews for it. You see, Mr. Knight, I have a great ambition to be a regular journalist, and in my spare time at Mr. Snyder's, and in the evenings, I write—things. I'm getting quite a little connection. What I want to obtain is a regular column in some really good paper. It's rather awkward, me being engaged all day, especially for interviews. However, I justthought if I ran away at six I might catch you before you left. And so here I am. I don't know what you think of me, Mr. Knight, worrying you and boring you like this with my foolish chatter.... Ah! I see you don't want to be interviewed.'
'Yes, I do,' said Henry. 'That is, I shall be most happy to oblige you in any way, I assure you. If you really think I'm sufficiently——'
'Why, of course you are, Mr. Knight,' she urged forcefully. 'But, like most clever men, you're modest; you've no idea of it—of your success, I mean. By the way, you'll excuse me, but I do trust you made a proper bargain with Mr. Onions Winter.'
'I think so,' said Henry. 'You see, I'm in the law, and we understand these things.'
'Exactly,' she agreed, but without conviction. 'Then you'll make a lot of money. You must be very careful about your next contracts. I hope you didn't agree to let Mr. Winter have a second book on the same terms as this one.'
Henry recalled a certain clause of the contract which he had signed.
'I am afraid I did,' he admitted sheepishly. 'But the terms are quite fair. I saw to that.'
'Mr. Knight! Mr. Knight!' she burst out. 'Why are all you young and clever men the same? Why do you perspire in order that publishers may grow fat?Iknow what Spring Onions' terms would be. Seriously, you ought to employ an agent. He'd double your income. I don't say Mr. Snyder particularly——'
'But Mr. Snyder is a very good agent, isn't he?'
'Yes,' affirmed Miss Foster gravely. 'He acts for all the best men.'
'Then I shall come to him,' said Henry. 'I had thought of doing so. You remember when I called that day—it was mentioned then.'
He made this momentous decision in an instant, and even as he announced it he wondered why. However, Mr. Snyder's ten per cent no longer appeared to him outrageous.
'And now can you give me some paper and a pencil, Mr. Knight? I forgot mine in my hurry not to miss you. And I'll sit at the table. May I? Thanks awfully.'
She sat near to him, while he hastily andfumblingly searched for paper. The idea of being alone with her in the offices seemed delightful to him. And just then he heard a step in the passage, and a well-known dry cough, and the trailing of a long brush on the linoleum. Of course, the caretaker, the inevitable and omnipresent Mrs. Mawner, had invested the place, according to her nightly custom.
Mrs. Mawner opened the door of Sir George's room, and stood on the mat, calmly gazing within, the brush in one hand and a duster in the other.
'I beg pardon, sir,' said she inimically. 'I thought Sir George was gone.'
'Sir George has gone,' Henry replied.
Mrs. Mawner enveloped the pair in her sinister glance.
'Shall you be long, sir?'
'I can't say.' Henry was firm.
Giving a hitch to her sackcloth, she departed and banged the door.
Henry and Miss Foster were solitary again. And as he glanced at her, he thought deliciously: 'I am a gay spark.' Never before had such a notion visited him.
'What first gave you the idea of writingLove in Babylon, Mr. Knight?' began Miss Foster, smiling upon him with a marvellous allurement.
Henry was nearly an hour later than usual in arriving home, but he offered no explanation to his mother and aunt beyond saying that he had been detained by a caller, after Sir George's departure. He read in the faces of his mother and aunt their natural pride that he should be capable of conducting Sir George's business for him after Sir George's departure of a night. Yet he found himself incapable of correcting the false impression which he had wittingly given. In plain terms, he could not tell the ladies, he could not bring himself to tell them, that a well-dressed young woman had called upon him at a peculiar hour and interviewed him in the strict privacy of Sir George's own room on behalf of a lady's paper calledHome and Beauty. He wanted very much to impart to them these quite harmless and, indeed, rather agreeable and honourable facts, but his lips would not frame the communicating words. Not even when the talk turned, as of course it did, toLove in Babylon, did he contrive to mention the interview. It was ridiculous; but so it was.
'By the way——' he began once, but his mother happened to speak at the same instant.
'What were you going to say, Henry?' Aunt Annie asked when Mrs. Knight had finished.
'Oh, nothing. I forget,' said the miserable poltroon.
'The next advertisement will say twentieth thousand, that's what it will say—you'll see!' remarked Mrs. Knight.
'What an ass you are!' murmured Henry to Henry. 'You'll have to tell them some time, so why not now? Besides, what in thunder's the matter?'
Vaguely, dimly, he saw that Miss Foster's tight-fitting bodice was the matter. Yes, there was something about that bodice, those teeth, that tongue, that hair, something abouther, which seemed to challenge the whole system of his ideas, all his philosophy, self-satisfaction, seriousness, smugness, and general invincibility. And he thought of her continually—no particular thought, but a comprehensive, enveloping, brooding, static thought. And he was strangely jolly and uplifted, full of affectionate, absent-minded good humour towards his mother and Aunt Annie.
There was ating-tingof the front-door bell.
'Perhaps Dr. Dancer has called for a chat,' said Aunt Annie with pleasant anticipation.
Sarah was heard to ascend and to run along the hall. Then Sarah entered the dining-room.
'Please, sir, there's a young lady to see you.'
Henry flushed.
The sisters looked at one another.
'What name, Sarah?' Aunt Annie whispered.
'I didn't ask, mum.'
'How often have I told you always to ask strangers' names when they come to the door!' Aunt Annie's whisper became angry. 'Go and see.'
Henry hoped and feared, feared and hoped. But he knew not where to look.
Sarah returned and said: 'The young lady's name is Foster, sir.'
'Oh!' said Henry, bursting into speech as some plants burst suddenly and brilliantly into blossom. 'Miss Foster, eh? It's the lady who called at the office to-night. Show her into the front-room, Sarah, and light the gas. I'll come in a minute I wonder what she wants.'
'You didn't say it was a lady,' said his mother.
'No,' he admitted; his tongue was unloosed now on the subject. 'And I didn't say it was a lady-journalist, either. The truth is,' this liar proceeded with an effrontery which might have been born of incessant practice, but was not, 'I meant it as a surprise for you. I've been interviewed this afternoon, for a lady's paper. And I wouldn't mind betting—I wouldn't mind betting,' he repeated, 'that she's come for my photograph.'
All this was whispered.
Henry had guessed correctly. It was the question of a portrait which Miss Foster plunged into immediately he entered the drawing-room. She had forgotten it utterly—she had been so nervous. 'So I ran down here to-night,' she said, 'because if I send in my stuff and the portrait to-morrow morning, it may be in time for next week's issue. Now, don't say you haven't got a photograph of yourself, Mr. Knight. Don't say that! What a pretty, old-fashioned drawing-room! Oh, there's the very thing!'
She pointed to a framed photograph on the plush-covered mantelpiece.
'The very thing, is it?' said Henry. He wasfeeling his feet now, the dog. 'Well, you shall have it, then.' And he took the photograph out of the frame and gave it to her.
No! she wouldn't stay, not a minute, not a second. One moment her delicious presence filled the drawing-room (he was relieved to hear her call it a pretty, old-fashioned drawing-room, because, as the drawing-room of a person important enough to be interviewed, it had seemed to him somewhat less than mediocre), and the next moment she had gone. By a singular coincidence, Aunt Annie was descending the stairs just as Henry showed Miss Foster out of the house; the stairs commanded the lobby and the front-door.
On his return to the dining-room and the companionship of his relatives, Henry was conscious of a self-preserving instinct which drove him to make conversation as rapidly and in as large quantities as possible. In a brief space of time he got round toHome and Beauty.
'Do you know it?' he demanded.
'No,' said Aunt Annie. 'I never heard of it. But I dare say it's a very good paper.'
Mrs. Knight rang the bell.
'What do you want, sister?' Aunt Annie inquired.
'I'm going to send Sarah out for a copy ofHome and Beauty,' said Mrs. Knight, with the air of one who has determined to indulge a wild whim for once in a way. 'Let's see what it's like.'
'Don't forget the name, Sarah—Home and Beauty!' Aunt Annie enjoined the girl when Mrs. Knight had given the order.
'Not me, mum,' said Sarah. 'I know it. It's a beautiful paper. I often buys it myself. But it's like as if what must be—I lighted the kitchen fire with this week's this very morning, paper pattern and all.'
'That will do, thank you, Sarah,' said Aunt Annie crushingly.
The respectable portion of the male sex in England may be divided into two classes, according to its method and manner of complete immersion in water. One class, the more clashing, dashes into a cold tub every morning. Another, the more cleanly, sedately takes a warm bath every Saturday night. There can be no doubt that the former class lends tone and distinction to the country, but the latter is the nation's backbone. Henry belonged to the Saturday-nighters, to the section which calls a bath a bath, not a tub, and which contrives to approach godliness without having to boast of it on frosty mornings.
Henry performed the weekly rite in a zinc receptacle exactly circular, in his bedroom, because the house in Dawes Road had been built justbefore the craze for dashing had spread to such an extent among the lower middle-classes that no builder dared build a tenement without providing for it specially; in brutal terms, the house in Dawes Road had no bathroom. The preparations for Henry's immersion were always complex and thorough. Early in the evening Sarah began by putting two kettles and the largest saucepan to boil on the range. Then she took an old blanket and spread it out upon the master's bedroom floor, and drew the bathing-machine from beneath the bed and coaxed it, with considerable clangour, to the mathematical centre of the blanket. Then she filled ewers with cold water and arranged them round the machine. Then Aunt Annie went upstairs to see that the old blanket was well and truly laid, not too near the bed and not too near the mirror of the wardrobe, and that the machine did indeed rest in the mathematical centre of the blanket. (As a fact, Aunt Annie's mathematics never agreed with Sarah's.) Then Mrs. Knight went upstairs to bear witness that the window was shut, and to decide the question of towels. Then Sarah went upstairs, panting, with the kettles and the large saucepan, two journeys being necessary;and Aunt Annie followed her in order to indicate to Sarah every step upon which Sarah had spilled boiling-water. Then Mrs. Knight moved the key of Henry's door from the inside to the outside; she was always afraid lest he might lock himself in and be seized with a sudden and fatal illness. Then the women dispersed, and Aunt Annie came down to the dining-room, and in accents studiously calm (as though the preparation of Henry's bath was the merest nothing) announced:
'Henry dear, your bath is waiting.'
And Henry would disappear at once and begin by mixing his bath, out of the ewers, the kettles, and the saucepan, according to a recipe of which he alone had the secret. The hour would be about nine o'clock, or a little after. It was not his custom to appear again. He would put one kettle out on an old newspaper, specially placed to that end on the doormat in the passage, for the purposes of Sunday's breakfast; the rest of the various paraphernalia remained in his room till the following morning. He then slept the sleep of one who is aware of being the nation's backbone.
Now, he was just putting a toe or so into the zinc receptacle, in order to test the accuracy of hisdispensing of the recipe, when he heard a sharp tap at the bedroom door.
'What is it?' he cried, withdrawing the toe.
'Henry!'
'Well?'
'Can I open the door an inch?' It was Aunt Annie's voice.
'Yes. What's the matter?'
'There's come a copy ofHome and Beautyby the last post, and on the wrapper it says, "See page 16."'
'I suppose it contains that—thing?'
'That interview, you mean?'
'Yes, I suppose so.'
'Shall I open it?'
'If you like,' said Henry. 'Certainly, with pleasure.'
He stepped quietly and unconcernedly into the bath. He could hear the sharp ripping of paper.
'Oh yes!' came Aunt Annie's voice through the chink. 'And there's the portrait! Oh! and what a smudge across the nose! Henry, it doesn't make you look at all nice. You're too black. Oh, Henry! whatdoyou think it's called? "Lions in their Lairs. No. 19. Interview with thebrilliant author ofLove in Babylon." And you told us her name was Foster.'
'Whose name?' Henry demanded, reddening in the hot water.
'You know—that lady's name, the one that called.'
'So it is.'
'No, it isn't, dear. It's Flossie Brighteye. Oh, I beg pardon, Henry! I'm sure I beg pardon!'
Aunt Annie, in the excitement of discovering Miss Foster's real name, and ground withal for her original suspicion that the self-styled Miss Foster was no better than she ought to be, had leaned too heavily against the door, and thrust it wide open. She averted her eyes and drew it to in silence.
'Shall I show the paper to your mother at once?' she asked, after a fit pause.
'Yes, do,' said Henry.
'And then bring it up to you again for you to read in bed?'
'Oh,' replied Henry in the grand manner, 'I can read it to-morrow morning.
He said to himself that he was not going to get excited about a mere interview, though it was hisfirst interview. During the past few days the world had apparently wakened up to his existence. Even the men at the office had got wind of his achievement, and Sir George had been obliged to notice it. At Powells everyone pretended that this was the same old Henry Knight who arrived so punctually each day, and yet everyone knew secretly that it was not the same old Henry Knight. Everyone, including Henry, felt—and could not dismiss the feeling—that Henry was conferring a favour on the office by working as usual. There seemed to be something provisional, something unreal, something uncanny, in the continuance of his position there. And Sir George, when he demanded his services to take down letters in shorthand, had the air of saying apologetically: 'Of course, I know you're only here for fun; but, since you are here, we may as well carry out the joke in a practical manner.' Similar phenomena occurred at Dawes Road. Sarah's awe of Henry, always great, was enormously increased. His mother went about in a state of not being quite sure whether she had the right to be his mother, whether she was not taking a mean advantage of him in remaining his mother. AuntAnnie did not give herself away, but on her face might be read a continuous, proud, gentle surprise that Henry should eat as usual, drink as usual, talk simply as usual, and generally behave as though he was not one of the finest geniuses in England.
Further, Mr. Onions Winter had written to ask whether Henry was proceeding with a new book, and how pleased he was at the prospective privilege of publishing it. Nine other publishers had written to inform him that they would esteem it a favour if he would give them the refusal of his next work. Messrs. Antonio, the eminent photographers of Regent Street, had written offering to take his portrait gratis, and asking him to deign to fix an appointment for a séance. The editor ofWhich is Which, a biographical annual of inconceivable utility, had written for intimate details of his age, weight, pastimes, works, ideals, and diet. The proprietary committee of the Park Club in St. James's Square had written to suggest that he might join the club without the formality of paying an entrance fee. The editor of a popular magazine had asked him to contribute his views to a 'symposium' about the propermethod of spending quarter-day. Twenty-five charitable institutions had invited subscriptions from him. Three press-cutting agencies had sent him cuttings of reviews ofLove in Babylon, and the reviews grew kinder and more laudatory every day. Lastly, Mr. Onions Winter was advertising the thirty-first thousand of that work.
It was not to be expected that the recipient of all these overtures, the courted and sought-for author ofLove in Babylon, should disarrange the tenor of his existence in order to read an interview with himself in a ladies' penny paper. And Henry repeated, as he sat in the midst of the zinc circle, that he would peruse Flossie Brighteye's article on Sunday morning at breakfast. Then he began thinking about Flossie's tight-fitting bodice, and wondered what she had written. Then he murmured: 'Oh, nonsense! I'll read it to-morrow. Plenty soon enough.' Then he stopped suddenly and causelessly while applying the towel to the small of his back, and stood for several moments in a state of fixity, staring at a particular spot on the wall-paper. And soon he dearly perceived that he had been too hasty in refusing Aunt Annie's suggestion. However, he had madehis bed, and so he must lie on it, both figuratively and factually....
The next thing was that he found himself, instead of putting on his pyjamas, putting on his day-clothes. He seemed to be doing this while wishing not to do it. He did not possess a dressing-gown—Saturday-nighters and backbones seldom do. Hence he was compelled to dress himself completely, save that he assumed a silk muffler instead of a collar and necktie, and omitted the usual stockings between his slippers and his feet. In another minute he unostentatiously entered the dining-room.
'Nay,' his mother was saying, 'I can't read it.' Tears of joyous pride had rendered her spectacles worse than useless. 'Here, Annie, read it aloud.'
Henry smiled, and he tried to make his smile carry so much meaning, of pleasant indifference, careless amusement, and benevolent joy in the joy of others, that it ended by being merely foolish.
And Aunt Annie began:
'"It is not too much to say that Mr. Henry Knight, the author ofLove in Babylon, the initial volume of the already world-famous Satin Library, is the most-talked-of writer in London at thepresent moment. I shall therefore make no apology for offering to my readers an account of an interview which the young and gifted novelist was kind enough to give to me the other evening. Mr. Knight is a legal luminary well known in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the right-hand man of Sir George Powell, the celebrated lawyer. I found him in his formidable room seated at a——"'
'What does she mean by "formidable," Henry? 'I don't think that's quite nice,' said Mrs. Knight.
'No, it isn't,' said Aunt Annie. 'But perhaps she means it frightened her.'
'That's it,' said Henry. 'It was Sir George's room, you know.'
'She doesn'tlookas if she would be easily frightened,' said Aunt Annie. 'However—"seated at a large table littered with legal documents. He was evidently immersed in business, but he was so good as to place himself at my disposal for a few minutes. Mr. Knight is twenty-three years of age. His father was a silk-mercer in Oxford Street, and laid the foundation of the fortunes of the house now known as Duck and Peabody Limited."'
'That's very well put,' said Mrs. Knight.
'Yes, isn't it?' said Aunt Annie, and continued in her precise, even tones:
'"'What first gave you the idea of writing, Mr. Knight?' I inquired, plunging at oncein medias res. Mr. Knight hesitated a few seconds, and then answered: 'I scarcely know. I owe a great deal to my late father. My father, although first and foremost a business man, was devoted to literature. He held that Shakspere, besides being our greatest poet, was the greatest moral teacher that England has ever produced. I was brought up on Shakspere,' said Mr. Knight, smiling. 'My father often sent communications to the leading London papers on subjects of topical interest, and one of my most precious possessions is a collection of these which he himself put into an album.'"'
Mrs. Knight removed her spectacles and wiped her eyes.
'"'With regard toLove in Babylon, the idea came to me—I cannot explain how. And I wrote it while I was recovering from a severe illness——'"'
'I didn't say "severe,"' Henry interjected. 'She's got that wrong.'
'But itwassevere, dear,' said Aunt Annie,and once more continued: '"'I should never have written it had it not been for the sympathy and encouragement of my dear mother——'"'
At this point Mrs. Knight sobbed aloud, and waved her hand deprecatingly.
'Nay, nay!' she managed to stammer at length. 'Read no more. I can't stand it. I'll try to read it myself to-morrow morning while you're at chapel and all's quiet.'
And she cried freely into her handkerchief.
Henry and Aunt Annie exchanged glances, and Henry retired to bed withHome and Beautyunder his arm. And he read through the entire interview twice, and knew by heart what he had said about his plans for the future, and the state of modern fiction, and the tendency of authors towards dyspepsia, and the question of realism in literature, and the Stream of Trashy Novels Constantly Poured Forth by the Press. The whole thing seemed to him at first rather dignified and effective. He understood that Miss Foster was no common Fleet Street hack.
But what most impressed him, and coloured his dreams, was the final sentence: 'As I left Mr. Knight, I could not dismiss the sensation that Ihad been in the presence of a man who is morally certain, at no distant date, to loom large in the history of English fiction.—Flossie Brighteye.'
A passing remark about his 'pretty suburban home' was the sauce to this dish.